


The Last Good Thing (About This Part of Town)

by Siobhan_Schuyler



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-29
Updated: 2012-02-29
Packaged: 2017-10-31 22:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/348902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siobhan_Schuyler/pseuds/Siobhan_Schuyler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Chris has to endure a nightclub on a Friday night, it'll be as a date, not a wingman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Good Thing (About This Part of Town)

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted [on my Livejournal](http://hello-mcee.livejournal.com/58255.html).

"I thought the point of being mildly famous was being able to avoid this crap," Chris grouses, standing stiffly next to Darren, who's having way too much fun eyeing the ladies in short dresses and young men in sports coats in line in front of them. Behind them, a block and a half of the same. Chris shifts uneasily, feeling under-dressed. He's routinely styled to an inch of his life for a number of functions but left to his own device, he's not sure he can dress for a common LA club.

This was all Darren's idea and therefore all Darren's fault.

"Come on," Darren coaxes gently, eternally upbeat, all but bouncing on the heels of his stupidly stylish shoes. Chris looks down at his own boring shoes and frowns. "It'll be awesome once we're in there," Darren continues, cajoling. "I'll buy you a drink?"

"You're going to buy me _so many drinks_ ," Chris agrees, and slips his hand through Darren's arm when the girl in front of them looks them over, her gaze sliding right over Chris to stick to Darren. And hell no; if Chris has to endure a nightclub on a Friday night, it'll be as a date, not a wingman.

He tells Darren this.

"Fair enough," Darren laughs, squeezing Chris' hand and squishing Chris' arm against his ribs. "But if I'd known this was a date, I'd've picked you up, or something. Maybe asked your dad. Or placed an anonymous tip with TMZ."

"And I don't put out till the third date either, so don't get any bright ideas," Chris quips, but deep down he's just trying to remember the last time he went on a date, let alone a third one.

*

Darren is confusing as fuck, Chris decides, eyeing the dance floor from the vantage point of his hard-earned spot at the bar, where he's working on his third vodka soda - on Darren's tab, thank you very much. He cut Darren loose two songs ago and has had to suffer watching him grind against half the people here, indiscriminate of sex or actual level of interest. 

This is a crappy date, even for a sham. Chris thinks if Darren is going to grind against anyone, it should be him, or that he should at least stick to the hot boys so that Chris can get a nice show out of the deal.

Worst part is, it's not even the worst date he's been on. And it's hard to hold anything against Darren when he comes to you halfway through your fifth drink, loose-limbed and happy-drunk and touchy-feely, the hair behind his ears curling up with sweat. 

"Can't take you anywhere," Chris says, slapping Darren's grabby hands away for show. 

Also he doesn't want to be a bad bar-buddy. He knows he's already pushing his luck by being kinda crotchety; no way Joey or even Chord would be anywhere but deep into the fray, racing to see who would collect numbers the fastest. (Chord always, always wins that game, mostly because he's always been able to spot the boys dying to give their digits to someone with a mouth like that. Some days, Chris can relate.) 

"Dance with me, Christopher," Darren pleads, toothy smile out in full force, as if anyone stood a chance against it. "I'm starting to feel like my date is ignoring me."

"Yes, you looked terribly lonely out there," Chris shouts over the music, sarcastic. As carefully offhanded as possible, he reaches over to test the boundaries of this whole arrangement by sliding a hand down the front of Darren's damp shirt then letting it settle somewhere barely north of Darren's belt buckle. Darren only steps closer, like that's where Chris' hand belonged all along.

Chris knows enough to recognize when his bluff is being called.

"Buy me another drink," he dares, fingers curling in a little, barely, enough. 

Darren shakes his head, breath barely hitching when he counters with, "Come dance with me."

"What kind of bar floozy do you think I am?"

"The kind that would rather be at home with G.R.R. Martin but is kindly humoring his friend and is actually a way better date than he thinks."

Somewhere in there Chris is pretty sure Darren called him a boring nerd but he also keeps calling him his date, so that's what Chris chooses to go with. He takes a deep breath, then a leap: 

"Wanna go to Sharky's and get some tacos?"

Because that's what boring nerd Chris does. He gets takeout mahi mahi and smudges the screen of his Kindle and gets a little drunk by himself on pre-mixed drinks in old mugs on his sofa in pajama pants he got on sale at Target three years ago. These are things Darren needs to know about him if he's gonna go around calling Chris his date. 

Darren just grins and slaps his credit card on the bar top, his eyes never leaving Chris's. "Thought you'd never ask."

*

They walk up Cahuenga with their food, and Chris has sauce dripping down his wrist as he wrestles his taco out of its wrapper doing his best to avoid getting some of it on his shirt. Darren is already halfway through his chicken burrito and talking with his mouth full.

"There was this dive on campus, Serrano's, that had the best fucking pork carnitas you'll ever have. Me and Julia used to run over between classes and stuff a couple dozen of their tacos in our bags for when we'd go get high at Nick's later. Now I think of my Tuesday afternoon drafting class every time someone cooks up some puerco pibil." Darren shakes his head, laughing. "I hated that fucking drafting class."

Chris has no idea what he's saying. His mom hates Mexican and he barely ever had it until he discovered Baja Fresh when he moved out of Fresno on his own. But he likes listening to Darren talk about college and all the stuff that happened before Darren was anyone to Chris other than a guy in poorly rendered YouTube videos. And he's pretty sure drafting is the thing Chris always got out of doing because he was never all that great with straight lines.

It's just a couple more blocks uphill to Chris' new place and Darren latches the gate securely behind them, trotting up the stairs after Chris, nimble in a way no one has the right to be this late into the night and this far into their cups. This bodes well, Chris thinks recklessly, and he pulls Darren inside into his dark foyer by a fistful of Darren's shirt. Darren's still talking, something about prep school and plate lunches, and Chris shuts him up by licking the tang of salsa verde from the corner of Darren's mouth then sinking in deeper to chase it with a taste of the four Seven-and-Sevens Darren downed back at the club.

Darren is grinning in the dark when Chris pulls back, tongue darting to lick where Chris had, his fingers curled into the fabric of Chris' shirt. He's panting a little, hips caught in the forcefield of Chris' own. 

"Third date, huh?" Darren asks, like it pains him.

This is not the first time Chris' own rules have come back to bite him in the ass. 

"This isn't an actual date though, is it," Chris says, not really a question.

Because Chris does not, in fact, put out on the first date. But he's willing to let Darren get off on a technicality.  



End file.
